Home Improvement Today?

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... Sub'd ... I do this almost everyday ... work on the house ...

This is a great thread and you guys are good at this stuff too.
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My wife and I did an upgrade to our small bathroom (5' x 6') this weekend.

We tore out the old vanity and mirror, pulled up all the peel n stick tiles and repainted. We replaced the moulding with the same stuff we used in the rest of the house.

We put in a new floor using Home Depot's Allure floating floor tile system. The tile is pretty cool. It looks like wood and has a strip on the edge that glues to the previous tile. We didn't have to pull up the old tile as it would have been fine over top of it, but one of the tiles came up when we pulled the vanity off. The others came up pretty easy so we just pulled them all.

The biggest warning I would give with this tile is be careful when you lay it down. If you press it down and discover that it's not aligned well and try to pull it up, the glue is strong enough that it may pull apart and tear strip from the previous tile. Depending on where you are in your install if that happens, you may have to either install one without the prior tile's glue strip holding it down or tear up the whole floor and start again (since they interlock, there would be no glue strip to start again from, tearing off the previous with the broken strip would probably ruin the tiles it is attached to).

I also repainted the light housing that was in the bathroom. It was silver and was rusting pretty bad. I cleaned it up with a wire wheel, put some primer on it and painted it black.

We did it pretty cheaply too. The new vanity/top/mirror was $250 at Home Depot but we got an additional 10% off since the first store we went to didn't have any in stock. The flooring was about $50 per box (we used 1 1/2 boxes). Total, we spent about $500.

We still have to hook up the plumbing for the vanity and then secure it to the wall.

One question, for the sink top, do you just put a bit of something like silicone sealer to secure it to the vanity or do you just let it sit?

Before:


After:

 

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Evil Monkey ... your bath job looks great ...

FWIW ... There are several ways to mount counter tops to cabinet and/or walls.

But the best way that I have found to do it is with a "silicone type adhesive" that stays semi-pliable.

Example ... I know of several granite counter top jobs that were "hard glued" to cabinet and/or to wall and all of those items expanded and contracted at different rates. That granite cracked in several places ... especially if a wall settles, even a tiny amount.

It does not take too much adhesion to hold that counter top in place.

Have no photos on this ... but this weekend we (me & helper) removed & installed a new garage to kitchen (1/2 glass) door (primed, filled, caulked and 2 top coated it). Then worked on some Elfa shelving and painted a large closet with 2nd top coat.

We use Sherwin Williams Duration paint, but not at list price (we wait and buy all of our S/W supplies at 40% off sales).
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evilmonkey - that's a hell of a transformation! looks great!

soshelopilot said it right.., you'll want to use a silcone adhesive from a caulking gun to afix the countertop to the vanity... - be sure to use 100% silicone adhesive -you can caulk (w/ the same silicone adhesive, or a paintable, or just white caulk) for the backsplash/wall interface to make everything flush..

 

Looks great!

Like the others said, just use some 100% silicone. Then silicone it to the wall (on the edge) to avoid any splashed water from getting behind it. I like silicone on that gap because it expands and contracts much better than regular paintable acrylic latex caulk which tends to crack over time.

 

After 4 days of laying floors, I'm almost done with the trim. I have a little bit of quarter round to finish and then I need to paint all the trim.

Last Monday and Tuesday I chiseled & scraped up the glued down engineered hardwoods (about 70sq ft) that were in my foyer. Man that was a bitch! My little harbor freight oscillating tool came in handy for this whole project from scraping up glue to cutting the door jambs. I got my $20 worth out of that tool this weekend.

I took Friday and Monday off work, and my parents came in town to lend a hand. Me and my dad got started Friday morning about 8am tearing up the carpet, pad, and tack strips. We got started laying floors about 10am Friday worked until about 6pm, then worked from 9am - 6pm saturday, then 10am - 5pm Sunday, they left monday and I worked on the quarter round yesterday afternoon.

The flooring is a single strip laminate I got from Lumber Liquidators. I chose the single strip because it looks more like real hardwood. It has chamfered/v-groove edges just like most real hardwood flooring does. I went with laminate because we have 3 dogs running around the house and their nails scratched the hell out of the existing hardwoods I had in the foyer. In total it was just under 1,300 sq ft of flooring. The only place I have carpet left is in the two other bedrooms.

 

wow, that's a hell of a lot of flooring to do! looks like it all came together nicely.. however, it didn't look like you got much help from the dogs

 

Haha yeah, it was Chewy's birthday so I let him sleep.

 

Did you cut it all? What's the purpose of the half-moon cutouts in the slats?

 

Since I have been withought ac /heat for a week. Today the old heatpump will make it to the trash pile, and John and I will install the new one. Yeah,,

 

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Can you buy brand name HVAC equipment without a license or do you have a HVAC license ... just curious ...

I wanted to buy and do most of the install on a new HVAC unit myself ... but could not buy HVAC unit without a HVAC license.

I wanted to do the first 95% and then have someone finalize the installation.
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nothing major, ..but got around to doing a tv wall mount project i had on the backburner..

so far, here's what i've done;

 

So here is a little project I did for the wife. A new mailbox holder out of Stainless Steel and a few cutouts of her favorite drink. Was able to use my new Plasma cutter and New Spoolmate 30A wire feed gun on it that I have setup for aluminum and SS welding.

 

I love the dryer wall box , use them all the time

 

Our builder puts them in standard. They are nice for space savings behind the dryer. I'm thinking about adding one of those in-line lint traps. My dryer line has a pretty long run. It goes straight up the wall ~9' then 90's then has a ~15' horizontal run over the kitchen, then vents out the soffit. Any lint I can prevent from getting clogged the better.

 

hopefully I'll be adding to this in the next few months...put an offer in yesterday.

 

Yep , I have an in line lint trap at my house , they are a good addition

 

had to trim the cover plate (right) because the system cable had ferrite cores on it that were a tad too big


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midlite recessed plug (left) - one end of extension cord connects to here and the other end to your surge protector..


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tada!!!!! so far nothing has exploded!

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Incredible work Macgyver. Do you have any before photos showing the carpet/tile/whatever you had before the laminate? Also that dryer cutout is nice---wish I had one. For the time being ours is just running along the floor to the exterior wall where it goes straight out, but it will be covered within the next couple months with some custom cabinetry. Right now though it's just uuuugly.